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MIA targets 500 members in 2008

2 January 2008
by Leanne Bell

The Meetings Industry Association (MIA) has brought in a membership development director as it looks to take its numbers to 500 this year.
Former Best Western Hotels development manager Simon Bullough will take up the newly created full-time role this month. Elsewhere, the MIA is also recruiting a full-time office manager, and has promoted administrator Angela Zemlak, to development executive for the organisation’s Accredited in Meetings venue scheme (AIM).The recruitment drive will take the MIA’s full-time staff numbers to four.
Chief executive Jane Evans said the creation of the development director post was the next step in developing the association. “Over the past few years, we have been restructuring,” she said. “We have put in place the accreditation scheme and are now ready to grow the membership. In order to do that we needed the expertise of Simon.”
Bullough was previously in charge of recruiting new hotels to the Best Western consortium, adding around 150 properties during his tenure, resulting in more than £1m in membership fees. Evans said Bullough had been set financial sales targets and that the MIA hopes to boost membership from 401 to a total of 500 in the next 12 months.